Strictly Come Dancing and The Rob Brydon Show are tonight’s TV picks

TV preview:
Strictly Come Dancing kicks off with the first of two live shows while The Rob Brydon Show welcomes special guest Stephen Fry.

Strictly Come Dancing, BBC1, 9pm

Pick of the day: Strictly Come Dancing, BBC1, 9pm

The competition kicks off with a two-night special in which our couples perform live for the first time. They’ll roll out a waltz or a cha-cha-cha but there’s no phone vote and no one will be leaving for this first round – which should please Peter Shilton , Paul Daniels and Ann Widdecombe , who William Hill reckons have the least chance of winning with odds of 66/1.SL

The Rob Brydon Show, BBC2, 10pm

It’s good to see that this chummy chat show is offering a regular slot for new young comedians. This week it’s the turn of promising 20-year-old Daniel Sloss, who is sure to come armed with some good gags about the teen years he’s just left behind. Seasick Steve provides the music but the main event is Stephen Fry , who is doing the rounds following the release of the latest instalment of his autobiography. SL

Singer/Songwriters At The BBC, BBC4, 9pm

Another interesting trawl through the BBC vaults, this time looking at the crop of singer/songwriters who sprang forth en masse at the start of the 1970s. Expect work by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, James Taylor and Cat Stevens, not to mention that bespectacled genre aristocrat Elton John. SL

Film of the day: Downfall, More4, 9pm

German actor Bruno Ganz gives an astonishing and, some may feel, unsettlingly sympathetic performance as Adolf Hitler in this controversial 2004 Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee. Partially based on eye-witness memoirs, it’s an intense, powerful account of Hitler’s final days holed up in his Berlin bunker at the end of World War II, as narrated by his last secretary (Control’s Alexandra Maria Lara). LI-Z